


the miserable

by orphan_account



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/M, M/M, Unrequited Love, are you fuckin happy steph, oops marcos dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-23
Updated: 2014-01-23
Packaged: 2018-01-09 17:13:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1148679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>five times marco falls for jean, and the one time jean realized he did too late.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the miserable

_Five times Marco has fallen in love with Jean, and the one time Jean realized he did too late._

_**i.** _

Jean is a splatter of crimson on a pastel canvas, stunning, striking, new and terrifying all at once.

Marco is taller, by an inch, at the most, but Jean has presence. He fills a room with the sound of his voice, the sound of confident laughter and wry smiles, swarms the patrons inside with himself and the fire in his voice that peeks through when he talks sends Marco’s head spinning.

He is not perfect.

Jean gets upset easily; he thinks with his fists and not his head-- he is brash, he is a storm that can’t be predicted even though people may try only to be shoved to the side every time. He isn’t strong, either. Time after time, he is knocked to his knees, has the breath forced out of him but bristles at the thought of defeat and tries again and again and again and Marco has to drag him away because he’s beaten and bloody and bruised and spitting out mouthfuls of blood and curse words.

_( when they’re alone jean is silent and still as marco bandages his wounds and looks oddly at marco as he murmurs gentle words that won’t change much but are comforting to hear anyways. )_

_**ii.** _

Marco trips over his wire and sends himself tumbling head over heels into a tree once during training. Shadis screams at him until his throat is torn raw and his face is red before pushing Marco out to the grounds to run until he collapses.

He does, eventually.

At this point, his body is screaming, muscles aching and spasming as he gasps for breath, skin clammy and the ground and sky and horizon have started spinning around him in some sort of chaotic, dizzying dance and Marco can’t be sure, but that’s when he thinks that he falls to the floor and passes out.

```

When he comes to, Mina is dabbing at his forehead with a damp cloth and she smiles sympathetically at him as he rasps out a weak, “Where am I?” before murmuring that he’s in the infirmary. “You just missed Jean,” she adds, “We couldn’t get him to leave.” Mina raises her eyes up to him with a coy smile. “If you ask me, I think he was scared,” At Marco’s confused glance, she pokes him in the chest with her free hand, the other dipping the cloth into the basin brimming with water. “For you, silly.”

She laughs when Marco splutters and blushes red.

_**iii.** _

When he watches Jean and Mikasa, his heart leaps up into his throat; jealousy? Perhaps. Bitterness? Probably. Absently, his mind wanders to the stories his mother told him as a little boy. The story of three people, faceless to him, but the story itself vivid in his mind. One boy, two girls; both in love with him, and he only loved one back. The Miserable Ones, his mother had murmured, running her hand through Marco’s close-cropped hair. Eponine, Marius, and Cosette. Eponine had died for him; she loved him, and would give herself up for him if it meant he would live.

Marco wonders, idly, as he watches Mikasa duck her head into her scarf to hide a small smile at something Jean said, if he’ll be the Eponine of the story.

_**iv.** _

Jean is cornered and trapped as he forces the gear off another body, gripping limp arms and dead hands in his own as he forces the blades out of cold fingers and tears straps off a deceased friend. The footsteps behind him shake the floor and the buildings and the sky as it draws nearer and nearer, Jean’s fingers aren’t steady. They shake and wobble like the ground and buildings and sky and he can’t get a good grip and if Jean doesn’t calm down he’s going to die.

Marco is Eponine.

Swallowing his fear, he leaps off the roof, in front of the Titan with a cry of, “Jean, calm down!” before taking off in the opposite direction. Connie and Annie don’t bother hiding their noises of surprise as he runs, leather boots slapping up against the stone of the walkways, the sky still shaking and so is Marco, legs wobbling even as he runs as fast as he can, runs like the day he was shoved out of the barracks and training and forced to run until he drops and it feels as though it goes on for hours before he falls. When he does, the Titan is behind him and Marco is silent.

There is no one around.

He doesn’t scream as his gear puffs out a cloud of gas, then dies.  
He doesn’t scream as he’s lifted into the air, only shakes like the ground and Jean’s hands.  
Marco closes his eyes, smiles softly.

_He’s safe and that’s all that matters._

_Marco is Eponine_.

_The world is black._

_**i.** _

_He sees Marco lying there, his skin festering and rotting away on one side of his body;  the cobblestone is stained dull red and brown and the crimson that Marco once told him Jean reminded him of, and his eyes are sunken, skin pale and beginning to sag and death isn’t a good look on anyone, but seeing it on Marco makes him want to scream._

_Marco is dead, and Jean realizes that he needs him in the same amount of seconds it took for Marco to breathe his last breath._   
  
_“I love you,” he wheezes, again, and falls to his knees, his words grating past his throat and his lips, muffled by the mask as he scoops his hands and later, in front of the pyre, clutching a bone turned ashen, a remainder of a friend and a dream, he presses his lips to his hand and weeps.  
_

_```_

_Years later, the Titans have been defeated and Jean lies down, pulling out the sheets with shaking hands, weakened by arthritis and dotted with spots, he dreams of Marco coming to take him home._

  
_And Jean sleeps, and sleeps, and sleeps_.

**Author's Note:**

> fuckin fuck me i hate this


End file.
